Headphone Diaries – October 15, 1991

An EP seems like a weird thing to talk about, but it’s only the most successful EP of all time. It went Platinum…twice. Who knew joke songs were so popular?

Because, seriously, “Everything About You” is a joke song. Hell, the band has a joke name. Many of their songs are jokes. It’s hilarious.

But, besides the joke aspect, it’s not a terrible song. And they proceeded to rock on their follow-up album, America’s Least Wanted. Songs like “Goddamn Devil” and “So Damn Cool” expanded past the jokey aspect into some actually decent songs. But the joke’s continued, of course. The song “Neighbor” is pretty damned stupid. And, for whatever reason, there were samples from Pat of SNL’s “It’s Pat” fame. Because that was a thing once.

Of course, their big hit from the album was “Cat’s In the Cradle,” an odd choice for a cover from a primarily jokey band. But it seemed to work for them. I guess it let them pretend that they were ‘sensitive.’

They had other albums. Did anyone else know that?

Has it aged well? Whitfield Crane’s voice is just to the left of metal-falsetto. Backing vocals on “Goddamned Devil” were by Rob Halford. So, no.